Change Your Focus to Get Out of Depression

I can imagine that right now if you are suffering from depression you have many voices in your head telling you how to think about yourself right now. Now as a Christian, I believe these voices are the devil and for other people, these voices may seem like themselves or they are unexplainable and just considered a part of human existence.

How do we get rid of these voices? And how do we change what they say? The answer to that is all in the mind.

I’m going to explain this in two ways because I am a Christian and so I do explain things in the context of Christianity but I can also explain things in a secular form.

First and foremost the voices in your head that put you down and state your current condition that you may feel as if you are unworthy to live, unattractive, overweight, unlovable, with no point in living are all voices that want your destruction.

Now, I explain these voices to myself by believing that they are the devil trying to pretend to be me and make me think that I am the one thinking these things of myself. He uses my pronoun, I, to pretend that he is me speaking to myself and that actually I believe these things about myself.

As for others, they may just believe that their mind is in a rut and they need to change the way their mind thinks to get out of depression. This is also true in the Christian mind and in the mind of anyone else you do have to protect your mind, protect your dreams, and your goals. You cannot let the enemy or the surrounding world confuse you of what you deserve.

What you deserve is a fulfilling life that is full of conquering dreams and goals all the while loving and enjoy people.

Now I want to talk about other people because when we get into the rut of the depression the focus is on ourselves instead of others. I have found that when I would choose to think about other people instead of myself it would not only make me feel better but the focus I had on myself disappeared.

See, I would wake up without a reason to take a step toward my goals and that was because I lost the purpose of what I do. I realized my purpose is not to live for myself but instead it is to live for others. I work out so that I can show people that they too can work out. I work on Tru.Worksbecause I want to show people that other people love them and that they are not alone.

As soon as I forgot about other people and the reason I do things for others I had no other option but to focus on myself and compare my life to others.

The problem is a cycle that I don’t want to go through anymore.

I’m just tired of having ups and downs I just want to stay up. I don’t want any more down times. And I realized I’ve been living my life the wrong way. I’ve been living my life the way I want to instead of giving my life’s focus on other people.

I’m going to give two examples of how my life has gotten better. The first one is that I met a friend online and he lives far away but found out that his favorite wrestler was going to be in New York for a book signing that he couldn’t attend.

I knew that I could go to the book signing and get that book and mail it to him but I didn’t want to. During that time of my life, (a week ago) I was suffering from depression but I said to myself you know what, I don’t want to do this but I’m going to do this anyway and I believe that this is what a good deed is.

The book signing was long and I hated being there. It took three hours to get my book signed for my friend. I bought the book and I still had to mail it. I hope that if he reads this he doesn’t think that he was a bother because he wasn’t. I needed to do this for him even though I knew I didn’t want to. And that is what a good deed is.

Today looking back I have realized that I still didn’t enjoy that I did that. But I’m very happy I did that for someone else other than myself. This move I made lifted me up and I’m happy because of it. Because I know that if I were to die tomorrow I have at least help someone else other than myself.

A couple days ago I had to help my friend move. I had so many things to do that day that I really didn’t want to help him. But I did. I spent a couple hours with him helping him move his stuff and I got to learn a lot about him and he got to learn a lot about me. Well, I still wish I didn’t do that I am still happy that I did.

Of all the friends I believe this man has I was the only one who helped him that day. Not only that, I feel as if I did something for someone even though I didn’t want to. It kind of reminded me of what Jesus did for me. Jesus loves me but he probably didn’t want to crucify himself. He did it because He needed to. I can’t speak for Him but maybe that’s what happened.

Jesus did it anyway. Because whatever He wanted to do that day was not as important to Him as his purpose. He needed to sacrifice himself. I realize that those two actions I took reminded me of what Jesus does. He did something he didn’t want to do and he did it out of love. He did the ultimate good deed. Remember He asked God three times if there was anther way to fulfill His purpose and God answered no.

It was these two deeds that let me out of my depression. I remember that Tru.Works was more than just me writing and letting out my feelings but I was helping others feel less lonely in the world.

This is how I got out of depression. I decided to ignore the voices in my head for a moment to help my friends even though at the moment I didn’t feel confident to face him, and I know I didn’t have the time to go to the book signing. I just did it anyway.

I believe that this is our purpose. I believe that this is what we should be doing. And because I did these few things I want to help more people, and I want to keep writing, I want to keep podcasting, I want to keep living so that I can help people.

I’ve never felt happier than I do today and I want to thank those two friends of mine. Let’s say we never see each other again, you have both changed my lives whether you have realized it or not. I hope that I’ve changed theirs.

I want to challenge anyone that is going through depression right now to get up and help someone. Cook something for someone else. Take that focus off of yourself and your life and move that energy toward the life of someone else. I know that you don’t want to but because of the lack of wanting to, it will give you more of an impact in your life then if you did want to. Just do it.

Yessenia Diaz has a background in graphic and web design but is also intrigued by writing and teaching. Yessenia created Tru.Works as an outlet for all her talents and continues collecting stories from around the world to share with people all across the interweb. Follow Yessenia on Instagram and her favorite, Twitter, @ythegreatdiaz.